Current Media Coverage and Treatment at the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Media Communication and Information Technology workshop, in Kadoma on July 21st, 2009

MMPZ Coordinator, Andy Moyse, made the following  presentation on the  Current Media Coverage and Treatment at the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Media Communication and Information Technology workshop,  in Kadoma on July 21st, 2009;

 

I’m not sure how many of you know the Media Monitoring Project, but those who do will be familiar with MMPZ’s weekly media update that appears in the press every Sunday. You will have noticed that the report nearly always contains statistics about the media that we monitor…

MMPZ’s job is not a very glamorous one, because we spend our entire time reading and listening to the news, counting stories and who or what they are about, counting voices and who they belong to, and counting sources and assessing their value.

Of course that’s not all we do, for we all know that statistics can lie! So we also provide some qualitative account or analysis of the statistics to ensure that the statistics are given their proper context.

We even recently had the good Minister of Information and Publicity claiming that our national broadcaster, ZBC, was giving equitable airtime to the parties of the Global Political Agreement on the basis of MMPZ’s statistics! This was very flattering, but not entirely true because although our statistics did reflect roughly equitable coverage, they only referred to the amount of coverage and not to the quality of that coverage. When you are just counting the number of times somebody’s activities are mentioned, it has to have some kind of report to explain what context those activities have been reported. Simple tables and statistics cannot reflect this. So we have to decide whether the report on the individual’s activities carries a negative, neutral or positive context, or even whether the context of the presentation of the news in question is fair or biased, or even sensational, and then in whose favour.

Well, as you can see, monitoring the news can become a complicated business  - and we monitor all the main radio and TV news bulletins and all the news pages of the mainstream newspapers such as they are.

But fortunately when Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai is described by ZBC as President Mugabe’s messenger to Europe and the United States, it’s not difficult to assess the context of that reference. Clearly it is not a favourable reference to the Prime Minister and certainly contributes to undermining the spirit of the POWER-SHARING agreement by undermining the Prime Minister’s authority and diminishing the power-sharing role of the MDC in the GPA.

So, when we count the fact that Tsvangirai’s activities have been reported we also have to provide a narrative context in order that an honest understanding of the record is given.

So what the good minister did was to take the stats out of context by excluding the critical narrative, which would have provided a more honest explanation.

Another favourite past-time of the national broadcaster, and indeed the Zimpapers Group of newspapers, is to prominently and selectively quote Tsvangirai, or Arthur Mutambara, or Tendai Biti (or any official from the former opposition) whenever they say something that can be construed to reinforce the perspective of ZANU PF.

Of course, the issue of economic sanctions is the most obvious example of this, although nearly always the comments are removed from the context of the whole quotation that qualifies the endorsement. This also has the effect of statistically adding to one of the two MDC parties while qualitatively it is actually adding to ZANU PF’s publicity once the context has been analyzed. This is not to say that these comments should not be quoted. Indeed it is important that they are recorded. But the professional journalistic approach would be to quote the individual in the context of their entire comment and not just to extract that which favours narrow partisan interests. This is especially important when Zimbabwe is trying to make a unique experiment in a power-sharing government work.  In this context the media are critically important in transmitting an accurate, fair and honest message to the public. But if they don’t do that and continually favour one political interest over another it creates tension within the power-sharing partners and anxiety among the public.

Of course, this sort of biased coverage goes on a daily basis in the country’s dominant state media, which evidently remains under the control of ZANU PF. And the most obvious evidence for this – apart from the news bias itself – is the emergence of the Prime Minister’s own newsletter. Why does Tsvangirai and his party feel the need to produce a paper specifically reporting on the Prime Minister’s activities? Evidently, it is only because they believe his comments and activities are not being fairly and fully reported in the mainstream media.

We could, I am sure argue for many hours over the possibility of my own biased perception of what we see going on in the media.

But there are many other factors in the conduct of the state-controlled media that are so straightforward there can be no denying where their sentiments lie.

I wonder how many of us attended the all-stakeholders constitutional conference   at the Harare International Conference Centre last Monday and witnessed the events that took place there…

For those of us who did attend and then witnessed ZTV that evening blaming the MDC, the ZCTU and ZINASU for “leading in disrupting the proceedings” which forced the “police to move in to avert a riotous situation”, this so-called news would have come as an extraordinary surprise.

But this is just the most recent example of how blatantly news is being distorted by the so-called public broadcaster. The Herald didn’t identify those responsible for the disruption in its news story of the event. But if it had been the MDC, it would certainly have identified the culprits…And even then, in its editorial comment it did blame the MDC for the rowdy disruption to the meeting on the grounds that the MDC had made a U-turn on the Kariba Draft, as if this was a document that has any relevance today. To this day the state media have not reminded the public that the Kariba Draft was the product of a political compromise struck in the hope that it would have been implemented BEFORE last year’s elections. Now that those elections have been held, it has no relevance anymore. But this is not the analysis we read about.

There are endless examples of the state media’s bias against what it evidently still perceives to be a threat to ZANU PF authority in the inclusive government…And perhaps I should give you one or two more just to emphasize my point that the state media have not reformed, or at least, are compelled to reflect the political opinions of those who control them.

Another recent example: Finance Minister Tendai Biti gave his mid-term budget (or fiscal) review last Thursday…This used to be anticipated with great fanfare and publicity by the state media when it was the responsibility of Reserve bank Governor Gideon Gono. ZTV’s scheduled programming would be simply cast aside to accommodate the lengthy addresses of the Governor live on television. But for Biti there was nothing. No live coverage on television at all, although the radio did carry some of the event. And The Herald too, would devote pages – if not entire supplements – to the pearls of wisdom from the Governor. But nothing of the sort for Biti.

So what impression does that leave in the minds of the public? Evidently, that Gono is more important than Biti.

Added to which, the state press follows up with blatantly partisan “analysis” employing falsehoods and half-truths in order to politically discredit Biti and his MDC party. Such was the story in last weekend’s Sunday Mail authored by our friend and former Minister of Information, Jonathan Moyo. First of all one has to ask oneself; is that the sort of coverage that Gono would have attracted from these media? And secondly, is this material a useful economic analysis of his policy statement? In both cases the answer can only be NO.

The saddest thing about all this is that it is the public who suffer. Readers and viewers alike are deprived of sensible economic debate and are forced to look elsewhere for something that will tell them honestly about the economic problems Biti is trying overcome – and whether his measures are appropriate.

The point I am trying to make here is that it’s not just Biti’s review and the hope for some sensible analysis that has been blighted by the contamination of a political imperative; this bias is reflected in the vast majority of the stories about all manner of activity that appear in the state media.

And it’s not just news about political developments and the inclusive government ­that suffers from this defective and inferior reporting…

Do we remember how the cholera epidemic was reported? Initially it was under-reported and the danger to the public was ignored. This failure to warn the nation contributed to its spread. Then it was reported to be under control. But none of the state media made any effort to investigate whether this was true. Instead, they just relied on government officials’ pronouncements and projected them as the truth. But had they bothered, there were plenty of alternative sources of information – professional sources – waiting to explain the truth about the severity of the epidemic and the urgent need to educate the nation. The government-controlled media failed to do this – and even remained reluctant to explain the extraordinary role that UN and other international emergency agencies played in bringing this epidemic under control…And do we know how important their role remains today in providing clean water and soap to poverty-stricken communities? Nobody has bothered to tell us.

Some attempts were eventually made by the private media to tell the nation about the extent and dangers of the cholera epidemic, and yes, the state media began providing some more informative reports once the epidemic was on the decline. But now that the crisis has passed cholera is now a case of “out of sight, out of mind”. The real source of the problem, our stricken and derelict water and sanitation services, have never been a priority story in any of our media, far less those controlled by the state. Their ultimate explanation for this state of affairs though, approaches the realm of fantasy: Cholera was a plot by the West to overthrow Mugabe and was a direct result of international economic sanctions.

 

This selective and distorted reporting perspective is clearly not the product of ineptitude; it is a habit…a compulsion even, to enhance and protect partisan political interests. This is the disease that the state media still clearly suffer from – as their coverage of the Prime Minister’s recent overseas visit so clearly demonstrated.

Unfortunately this disease has even spread to their unprofessional and selective coverage of events in Zimbabwe’s courts, especially those involving MDC officials and civic activists. Instead of providing complete, fair and balanced coverage of the proceedings, Zimpapers’ titles have frequently highlighted the state’s prosecution evidence while suffocating evidence from the defence. At times, these papers – and ZBC ­– have even censored news of entire court hearings, particularly those cases that reflect badly on the State.

Their censoring of the recent admission in the High Court by the Attorney-General’s office that human rights activist, Jestina Mukoko had been abducted and illegally detained by state security agents, is just one recent example of such unprofessional conduct by the government-controlled media.

Apart from the suspicion that these media are deliberately suffocating unflattering news about the activities of state security agencies, their blackout of the news in this case – as in many others –constitutes a violation of basic court reporting protocols that require news organizations to report fully, fairly and to finality, on the progress of the trials to which they have given previous publicity. In fact, news organizations can be called into contempt if they do not comply with these rules of reporting the proceedings of the courts. But such a sanction is evidently so remote that the state media do not worry themselves about it. Which is probably why they had no compunction about censoring Mukoko’s evidence of her torture at an earlier hearing.

In another recent hearing, the government media only covered a High Court ruling granting four freelance journalists the right to practice their profession without government accreditation in the context of the authorities’ appeal against the ruling. For example, while The Herald (06/6) reported briefly on the journalists’ arguments and the judge’s ruling granting temporary relief against any interference from Media ministry officials and the chairman of the defunct Media and Information Commission, it did not do justice to the successful argument, or to the reasons for the judge’s ruling. Instead, the paper led its story with a statement from the MIC’s lawyers that apparently had nothing to do with the court proceedings.

Including such developments in a court story without making clear that it was not part of the court proceedings constitutes another breach of court reporting regulations. Yet this is a favourite habit of these media when it comes to responding to unfavourable decisions of the court. To make matters worse in this case, The Herald and ZBC both censored the judge’s ruling interdicting the Minister of Information and his permanent secretary “or any person purporting to act on their behalf” against compelling any journalists to have themselves accredited for the COMESA summit, which the four journalists had sought to cover.

 

There is no excuse for such appalling conduct in these media.

 

But I can hear you asking…What about the private media? Aren’t they just as bad?

The short answer is, NO!

Of course, they make mistakes, they also extensively make use of unidentified sources as corroboration for many of their stories, and their news pages and bulletins do – sometimes – also contain editorial comment where it doesn’t belong. But they don’t censor news and they don’t tamper with court reports. They do report the activities of all parties to the GPA and their coverage is not permanently tainted by a dedicated political agenda.

In other words, they are a more reliable source of useful information than the state owned media.

 

But it is the public media that have a particular duty to provide fair, balanced and accurate news for their audiences, because they are owned by the public and should reflect all shades of opinion.

Of course, this is the mandate of most media institutions that hope to succeed in a commercial environment, and the private media in Zimbabwe don’t do a bad job of informing their audiences given the horrendously hostile media climate that still persists in Zimbabwe to this day – and in spite of the promise of extensive media reforms.

 

I’m sure it doesn’t need me to remind you that Zimbabweans are still living in an “Information Dark Age”; a media wasteland dominated by government-controlled propaganda machines masquerading as media organizations dedicated to propagating only the “official” truth.

This has been possible only because Zimbabwe’s repressive media laws have been introduced specifically to control – and not regulate – all media activity and, of course, our right to free expression. The result has been the emasculation of the independent media in Zimbabwe and the suffocation of our freedom of expression. Where else in the world – apart from the notorious dictatorships – are there no independent radio stations, and not even an independent daily newspaper? All you have to do to measure the poverty of our news services is to look across the borders to our neighbours where a diverse variety of independent news media exist.

 

Today, technology has allowed countless millions of citizens in democracies all over the world the most wonderful opportunities to exercise their universal right to freedom of expression. And they have seized these opportunities with both hands as evidenced by the proliferation of all manner of radio and television stations, newspapers, journals, online agencies and publications, blogs, podcasting and the rest.

These are the signs of a healthy society communicating effectively with itself. And this is how it should be; they have the liberty and the means to express themselves – and they do so.

But this is not how it is in Zimbabwe today.

Only three or four understaffed and under-funded domestic weekly papers provide any escape from the poisonous propaganda of our politically controlled public media institutions that dominate the media landscape imposing a tyranny of thought upon the population.

Their daily diet remains a single-minded intolerance for any alternative opinion and the systematic persecution of anybody or organization that expresses such alternative views. It allows them to distort the truth, suffocate investigation into corruption, graft and incompetence, and even allows them to tell downright lies in their pursuit of protecting their political interests.

 

In a real liberal democracy where media diversity is the norm, these extremist propaganda organisations would not survive in the marketplace of ideas. They would simply be assigned to the “lunatic fringe” of society and the nation would get on with their lives by choosing more reliable and rational sources of news. Once subjected to free competition, the influence of these propaganda institutions would quickly evaporate and their strident voices, that so affect us today, would simply be silenced by the commercial imperative of seeking to provide a credible and reliable news service.

This was so effectively illustrated by the emergence of The Daily News 10 years ago, which quickly overtook the circulation of The Herald and condemned the government paper to a “niche” market party publication because the public considered The Daily News a more credible source of news. It also proved why it was so necessary for the authorities to ban it.

And that is what is still missing in Zimbabwe today; our freedom to choose where we obtain our information about all things pertaining to Zimbabwe.

This is why the Global Political Agreement recognizes the need for media reforms. But without the political will to ensure they take place there will be no other progress in Zimbabwe’s political development and we will remain alone in our media wasteland.